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March 13, 2007 03:19 PM UTC

Tuesday Open Thread

  • 62 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

So like, get over it, man. Rocky Mountain High is going to be our new state anthem, and you’re totally killing our buzz by complaining about it.

And we want doughnuts. Lots of doughnuts.

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62 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

    3. Beautiful song – goes something like this:

      “Where the columbines grow,
      Beautiful Colorado.
      Coloradans rule,
      Everyone else sucks.

      Independent minded flowers,
      growing in the harsh mountains.
      Blooming purple and blue,
      kickin’ ass on the red flowers.

      Where the columbines grow,
      More than a mile high.
      God bless Coloradans,
      And no one else.”

      Great song really – but Johnny boy’s will be nice to have around too.

      BTW, anyone know John Denver’s birth name?

        1. I Googled this and the blue and purple ones are found higher in the mountains, while the red ones prefer the lowlands.

          Nice Tuesday morning metaphor.

          1. Next thing you’ll find is that the red ones actually contribute some utility to the world, while the blue ones sit around and parasitically leech their food from neighboring plants.

            1. The red ones are parasitic, contribute no benefit other than self preservation, and then lie about it. The blue ones propogate, build community support and interdependence, and strive to build synergy.

      3. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard “Where the Columbines Grow.”

        Some, uh, *heart-warming* lyrics in the actual song:

        “The bison is gone from the upland,
        The deer from the canyon has fled,
        The home of the wolf is deserted,
        The antelope moans for his dead,
        The war whoop re-echoes no longer,
        The Indian’s only a name,
        And the nymphs of the grove in their loneliness rove,
        But the columbine blooms just the same.”

        http://www.netstate….

        Funniest part of the Rocky Mountain News article (linked above)about the John Denver song:

        “Representatives defeated an amendment from Rep. Debbie Stafford, R-Aurora, that would have specified the song is about Colorado’s elevation and ‘in no way reflects or encourages’ drug use.”

      4. Born in Roswell, New Mexico, attended Texas Tech, joined the Mitchel Trio before striking out on his own.

        Wrote a paper on him in high school. 

        1. I had always thought it was El Paso.  I think his dad was in the Army Air Corps and stationed down that way.

          Or actually, maybe he was born in Roswell but the flying saucer guys transported him to El Paso.

      5. Of course, the Texas State song takes the grandiose cake:

        Texas, Our Texas! all hail the mighty State!
        Texas, Our Texas! so wonderful so great!
        Boldest and grandest, withstanding ev’ry test
        O Empire wide and glorious, you stand supremely blest…..

          1. I remember some expatriate Texan living in Colorado Springs who wanted to buy some mountain land and give it to the State of Texas for a Texas state park.  Big flap over that.  He was doing it in response to all the negative comments and Texas jokes by native Coloradans decrying  the number of Texans coming to Colorado.

          2. Shortly after moving here I still had my Texas plates and a car drove past me with a sign, “Go back to Texas”.  Sniff sniff.  Quite the welcome wagon.  Fortunately, we caught a small break during the California exodus and people temporarily forgot how much they hated Texans:)

              1. 1980.  I was born in Colorado but returned as soon as I was able, lol.  Texans LOVE Colorado.  We listen to John Denver and wax poetic about skiing up to our log lodge and sipping hot cocoa by a roaring fire.  Remember how Aspen was depicted in Dumb and Dumber?  That’s what Texans think Colorado looks like. If Texans aren’t your biggest tourism base I’d be surprised.

                1. A friend brought a copy to my apt. many years ago and I shut it off when it got to the urine drinking cop. Not because I was offended, but I generally don’t find toilet humor side-splittingly funny and don’t like to waste my time on movies I don’t think I’m going to enjoy.

                  Yeah, if I lived in Texas I’d probably long for terrain and weather that I can’t get at home. That’s why I like the Pacific Northwest.

                  Texas tourism sure ain’t what it was. I think the bulk of them were oil executives (remember how high gas prices were then?) and they pretty much stopped coming when prices dropped and the energy crisis ended. Hmmm, there must be a connection…

            2. I don’t remember many people complaining when Willie moved to Colorado.  I guess selective discrimination exists.

              Of course the IRS nailed him shortly after that and he lost his Colorado place.  I understand he is in Hawaii now.  David you know anything about that?

              2. He, also, owns a biodiesel fuel business. And a golf course. And eleven wild horses that he adopted so that they wouldn’t be slaughtered and their meat sold overseas to the French to eat. The man whom the onetime Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman has called “a True American” and the “hillbilly Dalai Lama.” Fourth of July Picnics, Farm Aid, ‘n’ all.

              3. He lived in Luckenbach when I was there, outside of Austin.  Legend has it that when the IRS sold his stuff at auction, his rich country music and Hollywood friends came and bid on the items and gave them back to him. Good story if true. I went to the 1st Willie Nelson 4th of July picnic.  I remember it was very HOT. Good times!

                1. he now has a place in Hawaii, though through it all he has maintained Texas as his real home.

                  In my earlier post, I was trying to bring a note of levity to the “get them Texans outta here” discussion.:)

                2. It was about 5 miles from town up Upper Bear Creek Road.  He just left a bunch of stuff, and the new owners did not know what to do with it.  I was aquainted with them, and I ended up with some pretty cool keepsakes, including a Visa card and a social security card in Willie’s name.

                1. Her grandparents were first generation in America from greece. So, her heritage is greek, but she was born in and loves Dallas. One thing is for sure, her attitude is 100% greek woman (crazy). And if you can handle it, it is awesome.

    1. That *just* made cockfighting illegal, and has practically come to blows every other time it’s been discussed.

      Our neighbors to the south are just a little strange. 

      But I’m still addicted to green chile and pinon coffee.  Those bastards.

      1. What’s it like having New Mexico as a neighbor?

        Imagine Ricky Martin, Dale Earnheart Jr., and the afternoon crew from the local Taco Bell sharing a duplex down the street.  Add corn fields and a cornucopia of tastefully and colorfully arranged trailer parks–painted in a delightful orange and yellow–circling the duplex with high quality strip clubs and cowboy bars dotting the landscape like dog feces at your favorite park.

        Be sure to catch the lovely wooden sign you’ll see hanging askew, the paint chipped and corroded by termite infestation, that reads: Welcme o ew Mexio!

        1. The capital is Santa Fe.  Which explains a LOT.  That place is freakier than Boulder and Manitou put together.

          They actually call the capitol the “Merry Roundhouse” because a) it’s round, and b) the people there are lunatics.

          1. Yet Santa Fe (which, as you stated, to my disgrace, correctly as the state capital) is more of a college town.  I find Boulder and Manitou a lot more picturesque, a lot more interesting, and a lot more adventure-packed than I did Santa Fe.  Santa Fe had some neat downtown tours and great art galleries, but beyond that it was too dusty and had way too many batty old women who looked as though they were somewhere in between senile, demented, and simply suffering from the bad effects of clambaking from their college days.  You weren’t sure if they wanted to hit you, hit you up for some ‘good stuff,’ or simply ask if you were lost.  To be sure, when I was there, I ran away.  Quickly.  And I really cannot stand those damned sideways streetlights.  I mean, what is that?  Are you trying to be unique?  Well, you failed.

            But, I’m with you, you just cannot find that kind of food at that kind of price in Denver. 

              1. In your continuing quest to understand Colorado politics..Yokel and drgod have just contributing, (see above postings) an excellent example of the cosmopolitian and sophisticated nature of coloradoan republicans…this is the first time i think that drgod may, indeed, be who he says he is……an excellent example of jeffco highschool stripmall attitude….

                1. I spent a year in that state, and came out of it with a wife and a green chile addiction.  I have every right to poke a little good-natured fun at New Mexicans, thank you very much.  Hell, most of what I’ve been saying New Mexicans (pronounced nuh-MEX-i-cuns) say themselves. 

                  They’re just a little bit stranger down there, is all. 

                  They’re *almost* as weird as Nebraskans!

                  Though turning a little tongue-in-cheek Colorado parochialism into some “evil Republican” caricature tends to say a lot about the left-wing Democrat-types.

                  2. I think the exchange was sophmoric and typically of what I have heard in jeffco highschool stripmall republican culture….I call them like I see them…

                    I will claim a bit of New Mexico, too.  Trust me, i have never heard New Mexicans make fun of themselves in quite that “cracker” way….unless your in-laws are from the SE corner……

                    Perhaps I am just old and cranky..and don’t enjoy a good laugh at someone’s else expense…could be.

                2. Any city that is at the foot of mountains and some 45 minutes from ski resorts that tells you that you can’t put a pitched roof on your house because native pueblans centuries before didn’t have pitched roofs deserves to be made fun of.

                  Also, that’s where my in-laws are from.  I should get a free pass. 

  3. Manual HIgh has a new principal.  Does anyone know why DPS waiting so long? It is late for teachers to apply for jobs and kids to choice in……I am curious.

  4. Interesting NY Times article.  http://www.nytimes.c…

    It appears that Generation Next is turning out very independent, defying the standard red vs. blue lines.  The 18-25 range is the least Republican generation so far (35% R) and less religious than their parents.  Consistent with other polls, 58% think homosexuality should be accepted and nearly 50% favor marriage equality.  Yet despite this, they are slightly to the right of the general population when it comes to abortion.

    The article goes on to explain that unlike their parents, they are willing to look beyond their own welfare and consider the welfare of future generations.  (The article doesn’t say it but maybe they’ll actually balance the federal budget!?)  The article says this generation may be giving priority to childrens’ interests.  Take responsibility for your actions which means no or limited abortions.  And on the same note, they see no reason to deny a needy child the right to be raised by two loving parents regardless of sexual orientation.

  5. I know…this is a little over the heads of most of our right wing cool-aid drinking friends on CoPols….so they’ll have to read this 2-3 times to get it. Bottom line…right wing whack jobs shouldn’t try to control the justice system in our country for their own political purposes.
    **********************************
    Emails in August of 2006 show that Karl Rove’s deputy was intimately involved in getting Tim Griffin, who himself used to be an aide to Rove, installed as the federal prosecutor in eastern Arkansas.

    An email from Scott Jennings, Rove’s deputy as the Deputy Political Director at the White House, shows that Jennings was in close contact with Grfffin, even working out the logistics of getting Griffin appointed. The email also shows that then-U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins cooperated in ushering Griffin in.

    “Tim said he got a call from Bud offering this idea,” Jennings wrote to Alberto Gonzales’ chief of staff Kyle Sampson in late August, “that Tim come on board as a special [assistant U.S. attorney] while Bud finalizes his private sector plans. That would alleviate pressure/implication that Tim forced Bud out. Any thoughts on that?”

    “I think it’s a great idea,” Sampson responded.

    The Justice Department made Griffin a special assistant USA in Arkansas the next month. Finally, in December, Griffin was made the U.S. attorney.

    The Justice Department told Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) last month that Rove had “no role” in Griffin’s appointment.

    h/t TPM muckraker

  6. Why do we tolerate this BS, as a country, as long as we do? Why??

    From AG Gonzales:

    Obviously I am concerned about the fact that information – incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress. I believe very strongly in our obligation to ensure that when we provide information to the Congress, it is accurate and it is complete. And I am very dismayed that that may not have occurred here.

    That’s not even “Mistakes were made” – it’s more like “Mistakes may have been made. Maybe. Possibly. I dunno.” Gonzales is presumably referring to his deputy’s December testimony (under oath) that neither the White House nor politics had anything to do with the massacre. But the massacre itself is totally cool: “I stand by the decision, and I think it was the right decision.” Even if he didn’t know anything about it:

    As we can all imagine, in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of the Department of Justice, nor am I aware of all decisions.

    Way to assume responsibility there, Gonzo.

    h/t firedoglake.com

    1. AG Gonzales does not know that what he did was perfectly legal…he may have even thought it was illegal and did it anyway,

      Let’s hear it for Texas…..If only Molly Ivins could have lived to see and hear all of this….she planted seeds that are blooming now as wild and reckless as Texas Blue Bonnets…

  7. because we haven’t been attacked since 9/11, besides being a lie…remember the numerous anthrax in the mail incidents?….also has the negative attached that it has increased terrorism and left our country far less secure in the long run. So does firing US AG’s because they’re pursuing truth, justice and the American Way! (I don’t expect any wingers to get that nuance). Then there’s this:

    The title is from a must read article from Stephen Zunes at Foreign Policy In Focus.  He presents a concise yet thorough review of the the efforts of the U.S. over the last four years. Here are some teasers:

    His summary:

    The failures of Iraqi democratization as advocated by the Bush administration should not be blamed primarily on the Iraqis. Nor should they be used to reinforce racist notions that Arabs or Muslims are somehow incapable of building democratic institutions and living in a democratic society. Rather, democracy from the outset has been more of a self-serving rationalization for American strategic and economic interests in the region than a genuine concern for the right of the Iraq people to democratic self-governance.

    and this

    President Bush and his supporters still insist that Iraq is a model of “democracy” that other countries in the region should emulate. Just as the Soviets gave “socialism” a bad name through their conquest and occupation of Afghanistan, the U.S. conquest and occupation of Iraq along with subsequent events in that country have, in the eyes of many Muslims worldwide, tarnished the reputation of democracy. Democracy, alas, has become synonymous with war, chaos, domination by a foreign power, and massive human suffering.

    I love how the wingers will twist and turn this into a deflection away from, and a genuflectioon to…. Bush. Clinton might have got 1 BJ, but Bush receives millions from his adulating supporters. They all suck.

  8. I do believe Eric E has made his shift to the Democratic Party official (I heard from a little bird he was in Denver for the a dinner a week or so ago). Does that shift the CD-4 line?

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